Romney’s Top 10 Debate Lies & the Facts that prove him wrong

ROMNEY’S LIE: “The president said he’d cut the deficit in half. Unfortunately, he doubled it.”

THE FACTS: When Obama took office in 2009, the deficit was projected to be $1.2 trillion during that year, and it ultimately turned out to be $1.4 trillion, according to Congressional Budget Office data cited by The New York Times. The deficit is expected to be $1.1 trillion for fiscal year 2012.

ROMNEY’S LIE: “I just don’t know how the president could have come into office, facing 23 million people out of work, rising unemployment, an economic crisis at the — at the kitchen table, and spend his energy and passion for two years fighting for Obamacare instead of fighting for jobs for the American people. It has killed jobs.”

THE FACTS: The Congressional Budget Office estimates that healthcare reform will reduce the health care industry’s workforce by only about 0.5 percent, largely because workers will decide to retire early or work fewer hours. And if Romney’s Massachusetts health care reform law is any indication, job loss won’t be a big problem; employment trends in the state have mirrored national trends since Romneycare took effect

ROMNEY’S LIE: “It’s hurt the housing market because Dodd-Frank didn’t anticipate putting in place the kinds of regulations you have to have. It’s not that Dodd-Frank always was wrong with too much regulation. Sometimes they didn’t come out with a clear regulation.”

ROMNEY’S LIE: “The idea of cutting $716 billion from Medicare to be able to balance the additional cost of Obamacare is, in my opinion, a mistake.”

THE FACTS: The indirect effects of Obamacare have yet to be determined, since the law has yet to be implemented. But as the law is written now, Obamacare doesn’t cut seniors’ benefits as part of its plan to curb health care costs, according to USA Today. Obama’s healthcare law would curb benefits to health care providers and insurers, but doesn’t directly cut seniors’ benefits. Critics allege however, that the cuts in payments would have the unintended consequence of hurting seniors because doctors would stop accepting Medicare patients, according to USA Today.

ROMNEY’S LIE: “Obamacare puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people, ultimately, what kind of treatments they can have.”

THE FACTS: Though Obamacare does create an independent board, the law prohibits the board from making recommendations to “ration health care,” or “otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility,” according to Bloomberg News.

ROMNEY’S LIE: “Up to 20 million people will lose their insurance as Obamacare goes into effect next year.”

THE FACTS: Some workers may switch from their employer-provided health plans, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but that number is more likely to be closer to between 3 and 5 million per year between 2019 and 2022.

ROMNEY’S LIE: “The president has a view very similar to the view he had when he ran four years ago, that a bigger government, spending more, taxing more, regulating more — if you will, trickle-down government would work.”

THE FACTS: President Obama’s proposed budget is estimated to cut about $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years and, so far, Obama has signed $2 Trillion worth of spending cuts into law, according to Democratic Party Pollster Bernard Whitman.

ROMNEY’S LIE: “My plan is not to put in place any tax cut that will add to the deficit.”

THE FACTS: Romney’s tax plan would cost the country $4.8 Trillion over the next 10 years, according to Tax Policy Center data, cited by NBC News, and verified by five leading independent fact-checking organizations.

ROMNEY’S LIE: “And these [green energy] businesses — many of them have gone out of business. I think about half of them, of the ones have been invested in, they’ve gone out of business.”

THE FACTS: Businesses that got government clean energy loans failed at a rate of about 1.4 percent at the end of 2011, according to The Washington Post.

Let’s hope that the Fact Checkers can get the big fat lies into all the
mainstream media. Those of us who have been following the unbelievable
whoppers from Romney are hoping he is hanging himself with his own rope.
But apparently the GOP is in “Gloat” mode….